


The Moment He Knew

by Nevcolleil



Series: Moments Like These [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Misunderstandings, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 19:16:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14940278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: “Jack, let me say this,” Mac insists. “I know that sometimes I can get a little... stuck in my head. And sometimes I can be a little naive-”“I like to think of it as ‘charmingly obtuse’,” Jack says with a very Jack-esquesmirk.(Or: Mac doesn't notice a couple of things.And then they're pointed out to him.)





	The Moment He Knew

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in response to a prompt on Tumblr. I'm... reasonably sure it fits the prompt. Mostly. To be sure I hit it just right, I went ahead and wrote three more little ficlets on the same theme :p I'll be posting them one by one as part of a collection. A couple are... kind of dark. 
> 
> As always, I hope you enjoy! I *treasure* the kind comments you loyal readers have gifted me with!

By this time, it’s a kind of running gag, Mac supposes, that Mac’s job is to think about and then do a thing, and Jack’s job is just to protect him while he does it. 

Well. Mac considers it a gag. Jack takes this description of his duties very seriously - although he’s much more than Mac’s bodyguard, some hired muscle. Mac actually depends on Jack quite a bit to do the thinking he has to do to do his job. And Jack lends a fair amount of his own knowledge and experience to getting them in, safely through, and out of their missions. 

And Jack’s shown that he knows Mac can be counted on for more than _just_ his thoughts. (Jack’s Mac’s regular sparring partner - he _has_ to know it.) He doesn’t try and exclude Mac from every physical altercation. He doesn’t go out of his way to find solutions to situations that don’t involve Mac exerting a little muscle himself, when much easier and more efficient solutions present themselves in the form of Mac shouldering some of the muscle work.

There are times, though... Times that Jack’s mantle of his self-proclaimed protector sits a little too heavily on Jack’s head for _Mac’s_ liking. And Mac-

Well. Mac’s tired... he’s grumpy. They’ve been trudging through Ecuador for _forever_ \- so maybe he’s speaking from a place of irritation right now, not truth - but sometimes Mac wants to _knock_ that block right off of the top of Jack’s squared shoulders.

“That’s ridiculous, Jack,” Mac says, making it clear in his voice that he really thinks so. “We all fit in this one just fine.”

Sure, with the remains of their confiscated pulse bomb taking up the passenger seat of the little transport jeep, Mac will have to sit in the back with their prisoner - but Jack’s already admitted that there’s no real danger of him breaking free from the binds Jack’s put him in. And they couldn’t risk putting the bomb back there in the cage with Avalos, even if they had time to lug the unwieldy thing back out of the jeep and cram it back in. They’re lucky Avaro’s buddies haven’t caught up with them already.

Which they will _absolutely_ do if Mac and Jack linger at the compound long enough to find and hotwire another vehicle.

Jack’s staring through the jeep’s windshield, and the cage, at Avaro like he’s trying to punch the man from here with his eyes.

“I don’t like the way he’s looking at you,” Jack finally admits. “I’m not real keen on him getting a close up all the way back to exfil.”

“He doesn’t intimidate me, Jack,” Mac tells him. Avaro’s intense stare is... unnerving. Especially since it seems, more often than not, to be fixed on Mac. But all the man can do is stare. Jack’s bound his arms behind him - and his ankles and knees to be safe. There’s not a lot of room back there in the cage, certainly not enough for him to twist around and make some kind of move against Mac - much less fast enough to act before Mac can respond.

“Yeah, well he bugs me,” Jack grumbles in a typical, Jack- _esque_ fashion.

There’s something else behind Jack’s protests, though - Mac catches that, even though he can’t pinpoint what it is. Jack looks, it suddenly occurs to Mac, less like he’s still glaring at Avaro to glare at him, and more like he’s doing it to avoid looking at _Mac_. His face and neck are flushed - from more than just the Ecuadorian heat? And there’s a tension in his jaw that’s far stronger than the typical impatience Jack shows with unruly targets. 

Comparatively, Avaro hasn’t even given them much trouble. He knows he’d be in more trouble with his bosses, if he escaped and went home without his bomb, than he ever could be with his government. He’s made some apparently, judging by Jack’s reaction, pretty offensive remarks to Jack in Spanish, but that’s it.

“Look, I’d drive and let _you_ sit with him if I could, man,” Mac promises, even though he’s sure that Avaro wouldn’t arrive at exfil with as much of his own blood still on the inside of him if that was their seating arrangement. “But...”

Mac gestures with the sad little makeshift wing his left arm has become, bandaged and slinged as it is.

When Mac fell off that tank, he might not have fallen under its treads, but he’d still hurt himself.

It’s when Jack passes up the opportunity to give Mac grief about that - _again_ \- that Mac starts to suspect that maybe Jack isn’t just being overprotective, as he often is.

“Wait, you’re not-” Mac starts to say, and then immediately shuts himself up, probably turning pretty flushed-looking himself. And, of course, now that he’s feeling - and probably looking - really awkward, _now_ Jack looks back at him.

Mac rubs at the back of his neck. “I mean... This isn’t because-” Mac gestures between the two of them and then feels even more awkward.

And stupid. Of _course_ Jack isn’t acting like this because of what happened between them just before this mission. 

They haven’t even discussed the _what_ in question. 

Another late night of hanging out at Mac’s house... the rest of the team having left or gone to bed, and just Mac and Jack left there by the fire, nursing the last of probably one too many beers apiece. They were laughing - probably too hard - about a story they’ve _definitely_ rehashed way too often, especially since it was one of _their_ stories, and they’d both lived it, so what was there to laugh about in the re-telling?

Jack leaned over, maybe to set his beer down on the table on Mac’s other side - or had Mac leaned into him?

Why had they been sitting that close to one another in the first place?

One of them actually turned the movement into a motion _towards_ one another, and not just in the other’s general direction, and then they were kissing. And then Jack’s hands were under Mac’s shirt (god, how could they feel _that_ good, just on the bare skin of Mac’s back and stomach, that Mac was almost literally _rock hard_ in just moments...) And Mac’s hand was on Jack’s ass, and Jack was moaning into Mac’s mouth, and-

“What?” Jack looks startled. “No. That’s- That’s got nothing to do with this...”

‘Of course not,’ Mac repeats to himself, in his head. And he manages not to feel... anything at the confirmation. (Mostly.)

“I look out for you, remember? That’s what I do. Always have, always will. Nothing’s gonna change that,” Jack says, in an oddly gruff voice. He’s uncomfortable, too, Mac gathers.

‘Nothing’s gonna change,’ he said. ‘Right, Jack.’ Message received, loud and clear.

“I mean- Nothing I...nothing I feel for you- None of that’s changed,” Jack says, almost like he’s asking Mac for something. 

“Right.”

“But we’re good... right?” Jack even goes so far as to ask, honestly more blunt than Mac had expected for him to be. “This is just me doing what I always do... Watching my partner’s back. My best friend. That’s it.”

And not that Mac doesn’t appreciate Jack’s cutting off Mac’s flights of fancy before they can even really get off the ground - rather than leaving Mac to wonder... But digging the blade in seems unnecessary. Mac had thought that, maybe, by giving Jack his space this morning, he’d been less obvious about his own thoughts on the subject of their ~~inevitable~~ drunken hook-up, but apparently by then the damage had already been done.

Maybe Jack feels like a little emphasis is necessary to get his point through to Mac?

Mac has been known to misread people’s intentions. 

“Yeah, Jack, we’re good. I get it,” Mac makes himself say, so evenly that even he could almost believe that Jack hasn’t essentially punched him in the _heart_ just now. “Can we get in the jeep now?”

Jack doesn’t like it. It is just as loud and as clear that Jack doesn’t like it as anything, and Mac does feel a little bit better to see that at least Jack wasn’t lying to protect Mac’s feelings. Nothing _has_ changed. Jack does still care about Mac at least as much as he had before - he isn’t so uncomfortable with what happened that it’s pushed him away.

When Jack just swallows and nods his head, Mac feels virtually grateful to be able to smile at him, wanly but honest, knowing that.

Jack’s loud, ominous-sounding shouts at Avaro, before he starts up the engine, keeps Avaro mostly still and quiet about a click past the compound’s outermost perimeter. But after Jack’s stopped checking Avaro in the jeep’s rearview mirror basically with every other breath - and very obviously _not_ looking at Mac, at all - Avaro apparently decides that Jack’s busy enough driving that he can push his luck without consequence.

Out of the corner of Mac’s eye, he sees Avaro looking between himself and Jack, and Mac turns to him in alarm - but all Avaro does is smirk at him meanly and say something in Spanish that doesn’t mean anything to Mac, but that is apparently awful enough that the jeep actually swerves on the road as Jack reacts.

“Hey! I said to shut your goddamned mouth, _puto_ ,” Jack shouts before remembering to translate the rest of what he has to say to Avaro in the man’s own language.

“What the hell did he say?” Mac has to ask, but he’s pretty sure he can guess - whether or not Jack answers.

Jack looks practically _apoplectic_. And there’s only ever been one thing Mac’s seen make Jack that mad, besides someone mistreating Riley or disrespecting Jack’s dad - and that’s someone threatening Mac.

“Whatever it is, tell him I’d like to see him try,” Mac says.

Avaro only grins at the glare Mac sends him, but when he spots the look on Jack’s face, out of the corner of _his_ eye, he absolutely _cackles_ with laughter.

It’s honestly startling.

“What the hell-”

“Just don’t talk to him,” Jack says in that same gruff voice as before. And he goes back to shooting daggers at Avaro with his eyes in the rearview. “And feed him an elbow if he opens his mouth again.” Then Jack barks, presumably, the same thing at Avaro but in Spanish.

The rest of the drive to exfil from there is quiet but remarkably tense.

Mac only catches on as Avaro’s being pulled out of the jeep from the door on his side, and he looks Mac directly in the face, winks... and puckers up his lips to make kissing noises at Mac.

Jack’s stepped out of the jeep to coordinate with the agent in charge of their exfil, but Mac’s still where he was, handing over the sat phone he’d borrowed to report to Matty that the mission was a success.

Avaro mutters something at Mac, twice, as he’s roughly drug away, in a tone of voice that Mac’s just realized is not _meant_ to be intimidating... It’s meant to be suggestive. Then Avaro completely disappears behind the agents taking him to be secured for transport.

Mac is honestly taken aback for a full moment. He _just_ snaps out of it before the agent whose phone he borrowed can walk away, and Mac speaks quickly to question him before he can.

“Excuse me, but do you speak Spanish?" he asks, and at the agent’s visibly hesitant nod: “What did he just say?”

The agent turns bright red. “He said- He said that he would... take the memory of your pretty face with him to prison. And to tell your boyfriend that he said so.”

That’s just.

Mac honestly doesn’t know what to do with that.

He’s still trying to figure it out when he meets back up with Jack, by the little outpost near where the exfil team set down their choppers.

“Good riddance,” Jack says, looking at the one Avaro is being loaded up on. “That little dude made my frickin’ skin crawl.”

And for a second, Mac actually forgets that this man has, pretty abruptly and effectively, broken his heart. He decides to embrace the experience.

Perhaps if Mac forgets often enough - and for longer periods each time - he will eventually stop feeling carved out the way he does when he remembers. Mac doesn’t see any acceptable alternative, and he will _not_ let his unrequited feelings ruin the most important relationship in his life.

“I can’t believe he was coming onto me this whole time, and you didn’t tell me,” Mac says, schooling his face so that Jack will see that he’s not actually angry with him. Not for that, and not for anything.

“Yeah... I didn’t figure you’d really _want_ to know,” Jack seems to say just as carefully, watching Mac’s face closely. “Gotta suck. Having some creepy guy think about you like that when you don’t want it.”

There’s no way Mac can _not_ make some uncomfortable connections to Jack’s saying that, but he knows that Jack wouldn’t ever be mean to him about a thing like this. And Jack doesn’t _sound_ like he’s trying to insinuate-

“About that,” Mac says, levelly, all the same. “Well. Not exactly about that- But, about... the other thing, that we didn’t really talk about earlier-”

“Mac-”

“Jack, let me say this,” Mac insists. Just in case. “I know that sometimes I can get a little... stuck in my head. And sometimes I can be a little naive-”

“I like to think of it as ‘charmingly obtuse’,” Jack says with a very Jack- _esque_ smirk.

But behind that - not even hidden very well - Mac can see the tremor of discomfort. Of fear even; and pain maybe. He knows that Jack values their relationship just as much as he does. Even if he doesn’t want everything out of the relationship that Mac does, whatever he may have seemed to want well enough when he was drunk and over-tired, and maybe a little bit lonely.

It’s a second blow to Mac’s heart to see it, and honestly - for the sake of self-preservation - he’d really just like to walk away and let his wounds heal at least a little before he broaches this conversation. But Mac’s got to soothe that fear away. Jack’s _his_ best friend, too - the Lifelong Partner Edition to Bozer’s Longest-Running model. And what kind of friend would Mac be if he took the coward’s way out of addressing this?

“I’m serious, Jack,” Mac says somberly, but trying to sound lighter than he feels. “I don’t know exactly what I can do to prove this, because I’ve obviously done a really _bad_ job at not projecting my feelings, or whatever, onto you so far-”

“Mac, really, man, I can’t-” Jack actually sounds choked up. Jesus. Mac’s got to get this over with.

“But you’re obviously really unhappy about it,” Mac powers through, “so I gotta tell you - you do not have to worry about my feelings for you getting in the way of our friendship or our partnership. I know that I agreed that we’re good earlier, but I thought it might help for you to hear it coming directly from me. What happened... it happened. I understand that just because you felt a certain way in the moment, that doesn’t mean I can just expect you to still feel that way. We’d been drinking - and, if it’s the same for you as it’s been for me, it’s been a long time since-”

Mac is on such a roll... he hardly even processes the face journey his words appear to send Jack on.

He looks steeled to face the worst... and then confused. Shocked and then, tentatively - almost _desperately_ \- anxious...

Or. No. That’s not anxiety. Is it... hope?

“Mac, buddy, I’m trying to stay with you here - and I hope that I am, but you gotta slow down a minute,” Jack finally says, in a shaky voice. “Just what the hell are you talking about?”

Mac takes a deep breath.

“I’m sure you’ve probably already figured out,” he backs it up and explains, “that I don’t just love you as... as a partner, or a friend. And last night, it- It wasn’t just fun for me. Or because I’d been drinking... or haven’t been with anyone in a really long time. Haven’t _wanted_ to be with anyone who isn’t y-.”

Damn. Mac stumbles but begins again. “The point is, it’s okay that it’s not the same for you. I’m sorry if I somehow made you feel like it isn’t. I-”

It’s a mouthful, but Mac gets _most_ of it out.

Then Jack’s clutching at his arm, with that same gobsmacked look on his face, and says, “Sonofabitch.”

Just that. And then he drags Mac around to the other side of the outpost, where none of the exfil team can see them.

Mac’s heart leaps in his throat. It’s not like he’s afraid that Jack’s going to hurt him. At least, intellectually, he knows that there’s no reason to be. But then why would Jack bring-

Jack grabs Mac by either side of his face, those large, rough hands gently cradling Mac’s jaw, and he brings his lips down on Mac’s in a way that’s anything but gentle.

Mac is dumbfounded. But he kisses Jack back - of _course_ he kisses Jack back...

And when Jack finally pulls back, to give them both some air, Mac smiles hopefully at him.

The first words out of Jack’s mouth aren’t exactly encouraging... but Jack works up to some better ones.

“Angus Macgyver,” Jack says, in a voice somehow at once fond and _exceptionally_ frustrated. “You know, for a genius... sometimes I wonder if that big brain of yours is actually _just_ full of bubblegum and paperclips. Holy shit. Don’t do that to me again, son. My old heart can’t take it.”

“What are you-”

“Mac, I woke up this morning alone...” Jack spells it out for him. “In _your_ bed. Then you spent the morning hardly talking to me... What the hell was I supposed to think? I figured you regretted finally letting me get in close enough to make a move on you, and I was ready to beg you not to just wipe your hands of me completely.”

Mac can hardly keep up with the leaps and dives his heart has taken today.

He only knows that, on this one, his heart brings a sort of hysterical sounding laugh up with it. 

“You’re joking,” he says.

Eyes hot and locked with his, hands still on Mac’s face, Jack says in a husky-deep voice Mac had only been about sixty-five percent he hadn’t dreamed last night, “I have never been more serious about a damned thing in my life.”

Mac doesn’t think about it - his thoughts seem to have caused them both as much trouble lately as they’ve saved them - and just says, “That makes two of us.”

Mac swears Jack’s eyes light up - so bright that Mac couldn’t possibly miss it.


End file.
